Shortly after his discharge from the hospital where he has been treated for the shakes, Korean War veteran George Haverstick marries Isabel, his nurse, a good-natured, romantic Southern belle. Their honeymoon gets off to a bad start when Isabel discovers that George has quit his job, that his "station wagon" is actually a hearse, and that their wedding night is to be spent in a cheap motel. Despite his conspicuous display of masculinity, George feels inadequate, and to avoid failure on his wedding night he gets drunk and passes out in a chair. The next morning, he takes his disenchanted bride to Tennessee to visit a wartime buddy, Ralph Baitz, who married for money but now genuinely loves his wife, Dorothea. Because of trouble with his domineering in-laws, the McGills, Ralph has decided to quit the family business, and Dorothea has left him, convinced by her parents that she, too, will be abandoned. When Ralph's in-laws arrive to claim their daughter's possessions, a fight ensues, and everyone ends up at the police station. George and Isabel, forgetting their own problems, commiserate with Ralph and Dorothea. With their help and Ralph's gift of a fur coat to convince Dorothea that he isn't after her money, the Baitzes become reconciled. George confesses his nervous anxiety, and Isabel lovingly reminds him that the best thing about marriage is that there is so much time to work out problems.

The American Film Institute is grateful to Sir Paul Getty KBE and the Sir Paul Getty KBE Estate for their dedication to the art of the moving image and their support for the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and without whose support AFI would not have been able to achieve this historical landmark in this epic scholarly endeavor.